November 13, 2017
Keio University
Ebara Jitsugyo Co., Ltd.
A research group consisting of Associate Professor Shogo Miyata from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University; Professor Keiichi Fukuda, Project Associate Professor Jun Fujita, Project Assistant Professor Shugo Toyama, and others from the Department of Cardiology, School of Medicine, Keio University; and Michio Ohira, Shuichi Takahashi, and Hideo Nakata from the Measuring Instruments & Medical Division of Ebara Jitsugyo Co., Ltd. (TSE 1st Section; Head Office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Chairman and President: Hisashi Suzuki) has successfully developed a culture substrate that can significantly reduce the amount of special protein coating required for the large-scale culture of undifferentiated iPS cells.
By irradiating the surface of a plastic cell culture dish (petri dish) with ultraviolet (UV) light of a specific wavelength using the EKBIO-1100 device manufactured by Ebara Jitsugyo Co., Ltd., the team modified its molecular structure. Through analysis of this modified structure, they identified the molecular structures that promote the adhesion, maintenance of an undifferentiated state, and proliferation of iPS cells, as well as those that inhibit these processes.
Based on these results, modifying the surface of commercially available cell culture dishes made it possible to culture mouse iPS cells without any coating. In addition, the team succeeded in significantly reducing the amount of coating material required for human iPS cells. As this surface modification method is a purely physical technique, it is expected to lead to a significant reduction in reagent costs and increase the efficiency of large-scale human iPS cell culture. Therefore, the use of this culture substrate and its surface modification technology is anticipated to greatly advance basic research and clinical applications of regenerative medicine using iPS cells.
The results of this research have been filed for an international patent. The findings are also scheduled to be presented at the 39th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Biomaterials (Funabori, November 20–21, 2017) under the title "Reduction of Adhesion Substrate Coating Amount in Human iPS Cell Culture Using UV/Ozone Surface Modification of Culture Substrate."
For the full press release, please see below.